Sampling: The act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a different sound recording of a song. The wide spread use of sampling in popular music originated with the birth of hip hop music in New York in the 1970s.

I have had a personal hankering for writing a post on this particular topic for a long time, and Finals week has given me the right amount of time due to procrastination. With that being said, it is popular act for upcoming artists (and established acts alike) nowadays sample their instrumentals. It is always a treat to see how the producers of these mixed tracks alter the original. Is the original still audible or has a new masterpiece been crafted all together based upon the shoulder of previous musical giants? Their main source of sampling usually comes from previous classic tracks that are well known by a majority listeners. This matchup we will present has a slight difference as rather than sampling a popular song, the reference track is the underlying score to the popular science fiction box office hit from 2010, Inception.

Wale ft. Meek Mills x Rick Ross – Ambition

XV – The Kick

In my personal opinion, I feel that XV‘s “The Kick” was the better of the two samples. This is by no means a knock on Wale‘s rendition (the title track to his “Ambition” album, as his track does make a decent stab at tying in a little of his own personal fire. The distraction of having two of his MMG partners on the track seems to dilute and ultimately go against the theme of the movie Inception itself. XV on the other hand goes all in for the track. The media junkie that he is adequately channels the sense of being alone, filled with desperation, and being in a seemingly endless wait for reality to begin again. Even to the very last second, the listener is drawn in with the imagery of the anticipated swivel of the totem that was used in the movie, a nice touch by producer DJ Teck-Neek. With all of this said, much of this opinion is based upon viewing (better yet enjoying) the movie Inception and the vast similarities in styles between XV’s version of the sample. Which track do you like better?